Midsummer came to a hot head with the Leigh Art Trail - where I exhibited some of my artwork along with the SEVEN Collective.
This was promptly followed by a mini break, in the protective darkness of the living room, featuring Some Like It Hot and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - aptly enough...
“Why don’t you cover a big cork bulletin board in bright pink felt, banded with bamboo, and pin with coloured thumb-tacks all your various enthusiasms as your life varies from week to week?”
Some Like It Hot - or how to avoid the heat
For those who don’t know…
Dressed as women to escape the mob Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis soon see how the other half live.
They hot foot it to Florida with a girl-band featuring “Jell-O on springs” ukulele player Sugar Kane - aka Marilyn Monroe shimmying in some eye-popping dresses.
Lemmon is soon pinched, then picked up, by a serial marry-er millionaire. While Curtis is courted by a bull-headed bellboy who looks all of twelve and sees ‘no’ as a challenge.
"That's the way I like 'em, big and sassy,"
he says. Agghh...
The funniest woman [not] alive?
Eccentric and dotty are words oft used to describe actress Margaret Rutherford. An original national treasure famed for playing ‘older spinster aunt’ types even Time magazine called her the “funniest woman alive”.
To me her on-screen self acceptance and quick wit makes her irresistible. As Miss Marple in Murder, She Said she deals deftly with misogynistic comments from young and old alike:
Alexander (a teenaged boy):
"You know, it isn't just that you don't look like Jayne Mansfield. You're not *my* idea of a maid, either."
Miss Marple:
"Well, quite honestly, I don't think *you're* everybody's idea of a boy."
This month she turned up on TPTV in The Smallest Show on Earth (also featuring Peter Sellers). I’m not sure that film made the best of her though - try Blithe Spirit or The Importance of Being Earnest for a glimpse of her greatness.
Choose your own adventure
Adventures conjure up Indiana Jones style quests. Or man-size discomfort in far flung places. But Morwhenna Woolcock (aka the Creative Adventurer) writing in July’s Psychologies magazine, says:
“Adventure is everywhere - if you know where to look for it.”
The trick, she found, was to make “the adventure wrap around my life.” This year she’s visiting one British island a month. She also went off on a 21 day pilgrimage following in the footsteps of her namesake saint.
All this is food for thought:
“Start by following the crumbs of curiosity and see where they lead you,”
she says.
In fact anyone who’s been Alain de Bottoned (or is just really well read) will know that Xavier de Maistre tailored his adventures to fit within the confines of his bedroom - because, well, he was literally confined there (duelling apparently). So, really there’s no excuse.
And, even more helpfully Morwhenna gives us some creative prompts to get us looking at everyday things through the eye goggles of adventure. Why not step into nature and create a sound map for starters? The whats, whys and whatyoumecallits can be found on the Psychologies website.
SEVEN did Leigh Art Trail
Our starting point: the sea. Our destination creative adventure. (There seems to be a theme here…).
This June saw the SEVEN Collective’s first creative journal exhibition at the twentieth Leigh Art Trail. LAT sees selected local artists - and some out of area guests - apply to show their work in participating shops and businesses.
Situated in Planet Leasing visiting Trailers were invited to get interactive with our creative journals, consider using the creative prompts we used for themselves, and even dabble in our community sketchbook.
‘Stage fright’ and blazing sun aside (I must have vampire ancestry) it wound up being a real pleasure to meet interested people and talk creativity.
See what people said in the #LAT2017 piece I wrote on the SEVEN website here.
Marisa Peer says: you're enough
“In my 25 years as a therapist, I’ve discovered that the root of so many modern problems — hoarding, excessive drinking, compulsive shopping, and overeating — come right back to a need to fill the inner emptiness of not feeling “enough” with external things. The more you tell yourself you are enough, the more you’ll believe it. It sounds so utterly simple—and it is—and all you need is the commitment to do it and the belief that it will work.”
Watch Marisa in her talk The Biggest Disease Affecting Humanity: “I’m Not Enough" here.